


don't  get too close (it's dark inside)

by transzoemurphy



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: 3am crying fits, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bulimia, Canon Compliant, Childhood Trauma, Emotionally Abusive Parents, Illegal activity, Inspired by an Imagine Dragons Song, Internal Monologue, Internalised Homophobia, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Not Actually Unrequited Love, PTSD, Pre-Canon, Self Esteem Issues, Texting, anxiety disorders, autistic jared kleinman, backdating emails, bpd!jared, child death related ptsdish symptoms i suppose?, child death tw, crying fit, guess ill tag it, i guess, it's hinted at, jared has bpd, lin is madeline berry from bmc but nonbinary, n take a guess who michael is, school shooting jokes, self hatred, takes place after for forever, tw child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 08:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17179373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transzoemurphy/pseuds/transzoemurphy
Summary: jared kleinman isn’t scared of the dark. well, he is. kind of. he’s only scared of the darkness within himself. literal darkness he can deal with. literal darkness is fine. figurative darkness can fuck off.aka: I was listening to one of my sad playlists from 8th grade and demons by imagine dragons came on and I physically couldn’t restrain myself from writing this





	don't  get too close (it's dark inside)

**Author's Note:**

> ugh sorru for any formatting issues im on mobile in florida n my laptops back home so im not able to fix it :/ but oh well
> 
> I have a BIG headcanon that jared has bpd.,.,., “frantic attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment” frantic attempts like faking emails about a dead kid??? hMMMM.

Jared was scrolling through his and Evan’s texts for the seventeenth time that night trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Like, besides the part where he started intentionally being an asshole so at least he’d know when Evan would leave. But Evan had fucked up that plan by staying and now Jared could feel him leaving and he was succeeding and he’d never so strongly wished he’d failed before.

17 June  
evan: ok do u want to go see love simon jsjdsjddkj it’s playing at northshore theatre w/ cc for u !!!  
jared: theyre playing it w/ cc,.,.,. for me.  
evan: n o i mean theyre playing it n i chose that one for u bc theyre playing it w subtitles  
jared: kjjkdkjsdsjk it’s ok i gotchu  
jared: yea sure dsjsdjkkdjd  
jared: like.,.,., if u can sneakey sneakey around my parents ya know  
evan: yeah i’ll tell them we’re hanging at my place  
evan: and i already asked my mom she says that’s okay w/ her so.  
evan: does 2pm tuesday work ??  
jared: tuesday is a school day ???  
jared: wait shit  
evan: JHSHJJHJSD  
jared: bullying  
jared: no yeah now that i think abt it. it should work.  
evan: aight jsjdjsjdj i’ll tell my mom !!

22 June   
jared: [spaghet.png]  
evan: why r u sending me memes of ur cat at 3am ????????????  
jared: it’s 3am why are you up????? go to sleep  
evan: jared  
jared: RIGHT KDSJKDSKJSKDSJ  
evan: are u like.,.,., okay ??  
jared: we’re all fine n gay here ! [ok emoji]

27 June  
jared: lmao my dad bullied my mom into making me go to some chr*stian summer camp r i p  
evan: :’(  
jared: yea it’s 8 days n ive said i didnt want to go but hes still making me go so !!!  
jared: 8 days and no electronics  
jared: only jEsUs ~~  
evan: whats ur dads address i jus wanna talk  
jared: jhdshjsjd

30 June  
evan: hey bb wanna go see star wars reruns at northshore theatre tmrw ?  
jared: i cant :/ sorry  
evan: aw :( next week ?  
jared: next week is jesus camp r i p  
jared: maybe after that tho ? ???

That, in retrospect, was probably why it had happened. Jared had, as usual, acted like a selfish dick, and rejected something he really wanted to do because Evan called him “bb” and he was too scared to face his crush.  
Well, that had ended up just fine and fucking dandy! His tumblr was filled with lovesick aesthetics all tagged with 19-02, Evan’s birthday. Great, cool, okay. He had written his own self-destruction and hadn’t even realised.

11 July  
jared: well camp sucked ass  
jared: im gonna down my sorrows in liquor n hopefully weed if u wanna come  
evan: i kinda want my liver intact but thx and i actually am tempted  
evan: thats not supposed to sound sarcastic btw  
jared: ok im gonna get wasted lol

12 July  
jared: hello it is 4am and im NOT sober and u probably dony want to know. this but i dead ass spent the last like..,.,. , ,. , 2 hours on pormhub and now i feel really bad i think i am goign to launch myself off a cliff now !!!! !!!!!!!!!!!  
jared: sorry im high AND drunk rn but !!! that’s how it be. i dont know why im telling u this and feel free 2 delete these messages once im sober n never speak of it but  
jared: im very sad and i feel very bad and etc and i low key want to climb out of my own skin !!!! this is fun for us both  
jared: we all know i LOVE bieng a RAGING homo but right now i really DONT. christian god doesnt love me. g-d might but probably not. :shrug emoji: it’s allg tho!! i wwnt death !!!!!!!!!  
jared: k im deleteign these messages and going to sleep !!!! oe maybe not !!! but probanly  
evan: ok i know im 3h late but,.,.,,,..,,.,.., im here to offer Support so. if u need it. u dont need to feel bad abt being gay. ur parents (mostly ur dad lol) have taught u that but it’s Not True !!!  
jared: i am 8 hours late but im finally up and im listening to the same four imagine dragons songs on repeat !! also i still am going to probaly launch myslef off a bridge!!evan: bls dont do that id be Sad  
evan: also what songs  
jared: monster, hear me, demons, and whatever it takes :ok emoji:  
evan: bangers !!!!!

17 July  
jared: it’s 3:37AM and im texting myself but i think evans mad at me and i dont have any reason to think that or anything but i do and i dont want this to end not on my terms but it’s ending and i dont want it to and i dont want him to leave and HHHHHHH  
jared: This is an automated message. The number you are trying to reach is your own. Would you still like to send this message?

27 July  
evan: my dude it’s been a While hsjhdhjjhs  
jared: sorry lol i was having a breakdown !  
evan: u know i genuinely cant tell when ur kidding or not skjdjkskdn ily tho !!! jsyk !!!  
jared: You Fool. That Is A Mistake.

He’d wanted to fucking spill everything but he hadn’t, he’d settled for making a joke when Evan tried to be nice to him.

29 July  
jared: uhhhh have u read the assigned reading for ap english..,.,.,  
evan: yeah jjjdjsdjkjkd  
jared: im only a chapter in n i KNOW doreen is a lesbian but my brain wont let me focus will u summarise it 4 me? ???   
evan: jdjhkjjkkd i’ll link u to my google docs notes  
evan: [bell jar notes - docs - sharing]  
jared: “doreen has ble (big lesbian energy)”  
evan: SHE DOES THO ?????  
evan: ive literally never seen a girl who gives off such lesbian vibes before  
jared: uhhhhh have u MET alana beck ???????????  
evan: JHDSJDHJSHDJHSD TRUE  
evan: didnt she start our schools gsa  
jared: kinda yea it wasnt being kept open for several years n she reinstated it  
evan: we stan a legend jhshshshd

8 August  
evan: hey hey [africa by toto but every word is in alphabetical order]  
jared: ^n^  
evan: shjjsdjhjs  
evan: are u,.,., ok??  
jared: Oh I’m Greta How Are You  
evan: yuo’re greta???  
jared: “yuo’re”  
evan: we’re both fools, ok, noted  
jared: fair  
jared: are u looking for the real answer or are u just being nice  
evan: no i want the real answer b,.,.,  
jared: lmao im still managing to blame myself !!!!!!evan: there’s literally no way this is your fault jare ? ? ???? ? ? ?? i do not Understand  
jared: i dont either It Just Is  
jared: issac died at nine months old!!!! he was just a baby!!!!! and i didnt save him!!!!evan: you couldn’t have saved him  
jared: buti didnt save him and now hes dead  
evan: there was nothing you could have done and you dont hsve to feel bad about that okay?  
jared: i just miss him  
evan: i know j i know  
evan: this pain will find its place in your life i swear ok??  
jared: <3

12 August  
evan: so my mom got a star wars shirt for me but she wasnt sure what size i was so she got two and one was too small so i was wondering if u wanted it ??  
jared: yeah sure kjdkskj   
evan: i can come over like,..,., tmrw if u want ??   
jared: sounds lit sjkksjkdkkls   
jared: does 2 work  
evan: yea cvkvkcvkj

17 August  
evan: hey im sorry but are u mad a t me???  
jared: im not mad at u !!  
evan: oh ok bc we havent been talking as much as usual so i wasntsure  
jared: nah were fine  
evan: thanks jhhjjhdsd im just being stupid ig

22 August  
evan: [wii music kahoot music mashup 10 hours]  
jared: :ok emoji: :dab emoji:

24 August  
evan: ok so i being a dumbass broke my arm !!!!!!!!!!! it si a Wild i kno !!!!  
evan: also happy 1 days until school

And that was when it was broken beyond repair. He’d spent a year being an asshole and Evan finally got it through his thick fucking skull.  
His next messages hadn’t been about anything other than Connor Murphy Connor Murphy Connor Murphy Connor fucking Murphy.

27 August  
evan: im not gonna lie to the murphys that’s a terrible idea

28 August  
evan: so i lied to the murphys.  
jared: ohhhhh myyyyyy goddddd

So there he was. Ten minutes after saying “yeah, I’ll backdate some emails for you and your new best friend.”  
Why had he done it?  
Good fucking question.  
He didn’t even know how to backdate emails, exactly.  
But there was Evan, with his stupid puppy-dog eyes and his lopsided smile and anxious stutter and then he was saying, “I can do emails,” without even thinking about it, and then, to keep up the assholish demeanour that Evan expected and not the demeanour of an insecure high schooler who was also desperately in love with him, “for two grand.”  
Evan offered him a twenty and he knew it was a bad idea. But Evan was Evan and Jared couldn’t say no to him.   
And besides.   
Maybe he could get Evan to stay.  
Maybe he could be nicer. Maybe he didn’t have to be such an asshole all the time.   
He’d done this. This was his fault.  
But G-d damn him if he wasn’t going to try to get Evan back.  
So he said yes. And he opened Discord and clicked on brie0020.  
okay so.,.,.,., its been a hot minute but i need a bit of advice  
As usual, Brianna responded immediately.  
it’s fine. whatchu need little man???  
It was an inside joke of theirs — when they’d met, Jared had been 11 and Brianna had been 17. She was 23 now, and Jared was a “little man” by comparison, according to her, and not just because he was short. Whatever. He was willing to go with it.  
jared  
aight so heres the thing.   
brie0020  
oh god, what’d u do  
jhdshjdsjhsdjhjhd bullying.,.,.,  
u remember that guy i told u about.  
oh??? evan?????? “his eyes are so gorgeous” “i love him so muchhhhh” “my heart beats twice its normal speed when he’s around” “my sexual and romantic awakening” evan?? that evan???????? no i dont remember at all /s  
WOW hjhjHJDHJSDJHDHJ  
THIS IS WHY I DONT TEXT U  
ok so  
basically the thing is  
i told him i knew how to backdate emails. to impress him.  
…i do not know how to backdate emails  
can i have a uhhhhhh step by step blease………  
me when our teachers start talking about how a school shooter could do their thing  
JDHKJHSKJDHSKJDHSJKDHKJSHDJKHSDH  
no but really ive made a Big Mistake please help me..,.,.,.,  
oh my G O D okay  
so basically  
1) get AT LEAST two servers. four or five is preferable.  
2) set up ur own lil wifi at home w ur servers  
3) rename them to the ip addresses u want to emulate. make sure u do that right  
4) make sure u know the email addresses ur trying to say ur sending from lmfao  
5) use a vpn for whatever u need wifi for dont be a fucking dumbass  
i hope u know ur not gonna b sleeping for quite a while  
how long will this take  
i mean w like 5 or 6 ppl it could take like.,.,., 4 or 5 months maybe ??  
SHIT  
no lil man dont WORRY about it. we’ll b fine. it's allg. i’m VERY high right now but hear me out. i’ll text michael and lin from camp. u with me. and they can loop there technologically inclined pals into it.  
and then one of them goes “hey why the fuck are u doing illegal stuff” and we all go to jail.  
nooooo only trusted friends duh!!!!  
oh my GOD.  
okay question  
do you have any servers at your house  
why the fuck would i have a server at my house  
i mean  
I DO  
ok take that  
and then ull need at least one more  
couldnt i just use like. public wifi  
and get it tracked back to u ????????? do you take me for a fool ????  
also how are u gonna change the times on a public server………  
right  
okay so  
if you text michael and lin right now  
(i dont have their discords)  
will u make a gc………  
yeah whatever lil man

His phone rang with the notification a second later.  
brie0020 changed the group chat name to “y’all wanna break some laws for a fellow gay?”  
jared  
i dont like the chat name  
michael  
hsjhdhjdshjjhsd VALID…..  
lin666  
hey. brie. what the fuc  
brie0020  
okay so  
jared want to explain ur predicament  
jared  
NOT REALLY  
brie0020  
i have to do everything in this fucking household  
[jared stop.png] [jared shut up.png] [jared done fucked up.png] [jareds a dumbass.png]  
jared  
lovin the pic names :/  
michael  
LMAO ME TOO BRO  
@ the messages not the titles but yknow that too  
lin666  
i’m confused  
have i been roped into backdating emails………  
brie0020  
yEP  
lin666  
…yeah ok let’s go !!!!  
i’ve Dead Ass helped do this before so  
jared  
OH THANK GOD SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEYRE DOIGN  
michael  
hey. lin. why have u done this before  
lin666  
;)  
brie0020  
oh lin do u have any servers still sitting around ??  
lin666  
yeah i have two  
brie0020  
CAN WE USE THEM,,……,..,..  
lin666  
yeah sure  
do u already have emails written up or  
michael  
wait  
why do u need to do this in the first place  
jared  
i plead the fifth  
michael  
me when one of my moms asks why i have a folder on my laptop labelled “not porn!”  
jared  
KJDFSHKLJDKJDSHFJKDSHFJ  
lin666  
oh u keysmashed u must be gay  
jared  
yeah fdkbmfcdkfckdh  
wait  
r we all gay here then  
lin666  
im nb but i like guys so  
brie0020  
im a lesbian  
michael  
im gay  
jared  
HEY GAYS !!!  
GAY-mers  
michael  
me irl  
lin666  
noah fence but it’s like.,.,., late here  
i require Sleep  
jared  
just a sec jus to make sure we’re all on the same page.   
i need this. like. soon. like.,.,., 6 days from now soon …?  
brie0020  
JESUS CHRIST…  
jared  
i assume thats a yes.

The conversation continued for a while, but Jared had zoned out due to How To Save A Life by The Fray coming on shuffle and immediately hitting “repeat song,” and then he had fallen asleep, the buzzing of his phone telling him he had a new message doing nothing to wake him.  
He woke back up at 3AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, so instead he turned up Panic! At The Disco’s Death Of A Bachelor album and pulled out the Calculus homework he still hadn’t done.  
His attempt at Doing Homework and Pretending To Have It Together lasted for approximately twenty minutes. Because he was doodling on the margins of his paper and ended up drawing someone who looks like Evan and then ended up sobbing into his pillow, shaking from head to toe with the effort of not making any noise.  
Why did Evan even fucking try with him? Why would anyone ever want to save a friendship with him? He was the worst person he knew. There was no logical reason Evan would want to be with him, be that in a romantic sense or purely platonic.   
The End Of All Things faded out and drugs by Eden began playing and God, wasn’t that ironic?  
so you ain't you when you're like this   
this ain't you and you know it   
but ain't that just the point ?   
Was he not himself when he was like this, or was he the most honest version of himself?  
He didn’t know. And realising that struck fear so deep into his heart and he curled up into himself, muffling his sobs with the back of his hand. Maybe he was only the most honest version of himself with his fingers down his throat.   
and you don’t know how to let go. He’d never learnt to make attachments and now he didn’t know how to get rid of them, all he knew was that he was a bad friend and a worse person, all he knew was how to push people away and then punishing himself for it and the cycle just repeated until, until when, until he fucking died?  
He didn’t love lying. It wasn’t the lying itself that he loved, or the idea of it rather, but being with Evan. Maybe he could mould himself into the person Evan wanted, maybe he could become someone who says what he means and doesn’t lie or cover every emotion with a layer of sarcasm. Why was it that every word out of his mouth was mean and sarcastic and calloused? Why did he think he was worthy of love when he wasn’t capable of loving himself?   
Was he capable of loving anyone at all?   
Did he even have a personality? Or was he just video games and sarcasm and soda and self esteem issues held together with Cars-themed bandaids?  
drugs faded out and I Know It’s Over by the Smiths came on. One sad song after another, because of course, he was listening to his “sad songs” playlist now.  
And he cried to that song too, and then You Found Me by the Fray came on and he dissociated to that, followed by The World Is Ugly by My Chemical Romance, and Hear Me by Imagine Dragons, and he only startled back into his body when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Or, more accurately, he felt the footsteps from across the house — he was hypersensitive to what was going on at all times.  
Quickly, he laid down,   
step  
hid his headphones under his pillow,   
step, step, step  
and organized his stuff so it looked like he’d fallen asleep doing homework, just in case.  
Step. Step.  
A door creaking. A handle turning. A door closing. A bed creaking.  
Silence.  
He sat back up, put his headphones back on, and hit play, this time on Couple of Kids by Maggie Linderman, and went back to doing his homework as though nothing had even happened. Except not really, because he got through a problem and then sat there just thinking about nothing for thirty minutes before texting Evan “hey lol im gonna need to ‘borrow’ ur homework in homeroom 2day” and lying down, his headphones still on, and turning off the lamp by his bed.  
The glow stars on his ceiling blinked down at him, and he remembered when he’d put them up there. He’d been twelve at the time, and Evan had helped him, the two of them starting by putting all the second-largest stars in a shaky Ursa Major and then scattering the others around the ceiling, standing on Jared’s bed, his desk, a stack of books, and (once they’d stopped being more stupid than usual) a stool. They’d put them up because Jared was big into his astronomy phase — he still was, but not as hyperfixated as he’d been between ten and fifteen — and he wanted to see the stars even when he was inside.  
The two of them had stuck each star carefully to the ceiling with putty (and when that ran out, gum, which was not the best choice they could have made, but what’s done is done) and then dragged out beanbag chairs and played videos and talked for hours before going to sleep.  
In retrospect, maybe that’s when it started to fall apart.  
Because sometime in the middle of the night he’d woken up from a dream. About Evan. And immediately went into the bathroom and showered with hot water and scrubbed his skin so hard it was raw and bleeding. He then proceeded to listen to a song from a musical and relate really hard to one of the main characters, Connor McKinley, who’d had a friend Steve who he’d had a crush on and ended up dreaming about. Weirdly enough, he’d been dreaming about a deserted island, also. Although that wasn’t the reason he’d started being wary of how he felt for Evan, it was because of his dream. And before long the truth became undeniable and he hated himself for it, he hated every time Evan would lean closer to him and he blushed, he hated every time Evan made a joke and he laughed too loudly, he hated Evan’s smile with a slight dimple on his left cheek and one side of his mouth going up a little farther than the other, he hated the way his heart fluttered when Evan laughed, he hated how his heart sunk when Evan was upset. He fucking hated every part of it.   
But until that one day in gym class he’d not acted on his thoughts of pushing Evan away to save himself.   
Well, at first it was to save himself. Then it was to save them both, as Jared matured, as he realised that he was toxic and he hurt everyone he touched in one way or another, and if that wasn’t true, well… it was true. Because Issac’s death was his fault and that was maybe the worst bit of evidence against him but if he didn’t hurt everyone then why did they leave?   
His baby brother had been nine months old when he died and the autopsy hadn’t been able to determine if his death was from pneumonia or from the car crash but if Jared hadn’t made his father mad, he never would have gone out on the road in a storm and he never would have crashed the car and Issac would be okay, Issac would be alive, Issac would be eight years old, but Jared made his father mad and it cost him his brother’s fucking life.  
His thoughts were cars on a busy interstate and he was never going to get to sleep with the rushing in his head, not with his brain playing back every memory he had like a broken record, not with Evan Hansen fucking stuck in his head like he’d been superglued to the forefront of Jared’s mind. Not with all the evidence that he was fucking worthless spinning around and around tearing into the wallpaper of his mind with every passing second. Not with the thoughts in his head crashing and screaming and going too fast and getting into car accidents like the one that killed his brother.  
Jared Kleinman was in a pitch dark room. Not physically, as he had the light of his clock blinking mockingly up at him, 4:27 4:27 4:27 god you're such a failure you can't even sleep correctly 4:27 4:27 4:27 4:28 4:28 4:28  
Jared was kind of tempted to go get a snack. A nice carton of ice cream maybe. But he knew that if he got the ice cream out he'd eat the whole thing and then become intimately acquainted with the toilet bowl, so he didn't do that. Besides, he didn't want to stand up.   
He stared at the ceiling and the stars glared down at him, rubbing his lack of sleep into his face.   
4:32.  
His eyelids felt like they were weighed down by sandbags but he couldn't sleep, he couldn't even think over the thoughts racing in his mind.   
His phone lit up with a message and he rolled onto his side.

29 August  
evan: ok but I hope ur sleeping by now it's rlly late

He contemplated his next move and decided that "fuck the consequences" was the way to go for now.

jared: i am,,,,.,.,.,.,,. not sleeping   
evan: oh no :( why not ??  
jared: i just cant fall asleep :/ i got like,, an hour mayhaps ?? n woke up at three n cant get back to sleep so  
evan: that sucks im sorry ):  
jared: ya well. it b like that sometimes  
evan: it rlly do be like that sometimes  
jared: ,,it really do

**Author's Note:**

> find me on t*mblr @dont-the-tears-just-pour if u want to watch me scream for 30 hours a week and my twitter is @its_from_japan if you'd like to spot a cryptid retweeting memes one (1) time every 3 (three) years ??  
> also, literally nO ONE ASKED but i’m going to give u a list of all the songs on my “BIG sad jared energy” playlist  
> Couple of Kids by Maggie Linderman  
> How To Save A Life by the Fray  
> You Found Me by the Fray  
> I Don't Love You by My Chemical Romance  
> The World Is Ugly by My Chemical Romance  
> Hear Me by Imagine Dragons  
> Demons by Imagine Dragons  
> Monster by Imagine Dragons  
> Whatever It Takes by Imagine Dragons  
> drugs by EDEN  
> Your Graduation by Modern Baseball  
> Take Me To Church by Hozier  
> Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High by Arctic Monkeys  
> Someone Like You - Adele cover by Ben Platt  
> just friends by (my lovely friend <3 LYDIA I LOVE U) lyd. (on youtube uwu pls subscribe i Love Her)  
> The Things We Used To Share by Thomas Sanders  
> Heaven by Troye Sivan  
> Your Graduation by Modern Baseball  
> & more but i’m getting lazy !!!!


End file.
